Once in the street, Phillida's perplexities began. She had undertaken to
send for Millard, but there were no slow-footed district Mercuries to be
had in the Mackerelville part of New York. It was now barely half-past
six, and Millard would hardly have risen yet. In a battle against grim
death and Miss Bowyer time seemed all important. She therefore took a
Fourteenth street car and changed to an up-town line carrying her to the
vicinity of the Graydon, debating all the way how quickest to get an
explicit message to Millard without a personal interview, which would be
painful to both, and which might be misconstrued. Phillida alighted from
the car in the neighborhood of the Graydon, whose mountainous dimensions
deflected the March wind into sudden and disagreeable backsets and
whirling eddies that threatened the perpendicularity of foot-passengers.
She requested a florist, who was opening his shop and arranging a little
exhibition of the hardier in-door plants on the sidewalk, to direct her
to a district telegraph office, and was referred to one just around the
corner. To this always open place she walked as rapidly as possible, to
find a sleepy-looking young woman just settling herself at the desk,
having at that moment relieved the man who had been on duty all night.
"Can you give me a messenger right away?" she demanded.
"In about fifteen or twenty minutes we'll have one in," said the girl.
"We don't keep but two on duty at this hour, and they're both out, and
there's one call ahead of you. Take a seat, won't you?"
But Phillida saw in her imagination Mrs. Martin badgered by Eleanor
Bowyer, and heard again the grievous cry of the frightened and suffering
Tommy. After all, she could only make the matter understood imperfectly
by means of a message. Why should she stand on delicacy in a matter of
life and death? She reflected that there was no animosity between her
and Millard, and she recalled his figure as he reached his hand to her
that fatal evening, and she remembered the emotion in his voice when he
said, "Part friends?" She resolved to go in person to the Graydon.
The entrance to the apartment building displayed a good deal of that
joint-stock grandeur which goes for much and yet costs each individual
householder but little. Despite her anxiety, Phillida was so far
impressed by the elaborate bronze mantelpiece over the great hall
fireplace, the carved wooden seats, and the frescoing and gilding of the
walls, as to remember that she was dressed for a tenement in Avenue C,
and not for a west-side apartment house. The gray shawl she had left
behind; but she felt sure that the important-looking hall boys and,
above all, the plump and prosperous-seeming clerk at the desk, with an
habitually neutral expression upon his countenance, must wonder why a
woman had intruded into the sacred front entrance in so plain a hat and
gown at seven o'clock in the morning. She felt in her pocket for her
card-case, but of course that had been left in the pocket of a better
dress, and she must write upon one of those little cards that the house
furnishes; and all this while the clerk would be wondering who she was.
But there was a native self-reliance about Phillida that shielded her
from contempt. She asked for the card, took up a pen, and wrote:
"Miss Callender wishes to see Mr. Millard in great haste, on a matter of
the utmost importance."
She was about to put this into an envelope, but she reflected that an
open message was better. She handed the card to the clerk, who took it
hesitatingly, and with a touch of "style" in his bearing, saying, "Mr.
Millard will not be down for half an hour yet. He is not up. Will you
wait?"
"He must be called," said Phillida. "It is a matter of life and death."
The clerk still held the note in his hand.
"He will be very much annoyed if that is not delivered to him at once.
It is his own affair, and, as I said, a matter of life and death," said
Phillida, speaking peremptorily, her courage rising to the occasion.
The clerk still held the note. He presently beckoned to a negro boy
sitting on one of the carved benches.
"Washington," he said.
Washington came forward to the counter.
"Wash," said the clerk in an undertone--an undress tone kept for those
upon whom it would have been useless to waste his habitual bearing as
the representative of the corporate proprietorship of the building--"has
Mr. Millard's man come in yet?"
"No, sir."
"Take this up to seventy-nine, and say that the lady is below and
insists on his being called at once." Then to Phillida, as the form of
Washington vanished upward by way of the marble staircase, "Will you
take a seat in the reception-room?" waving his hand slightly in the
direction of a portiere, behind which Phillida found herself in the
ladies' reception-room.
In ten minutes Millard came down the elevator, glanced about the office,
and then quickly entered the reception-room. There were unwonted traces
of haste in his toilet; his hair had been hastily brushed, but it had
been brushed, as indeed it would probably have been if Washington had
announced that the Graydon was in flames.
There was a moment of embarrassment. What manner was proper for such a
meeting? It would not do to say "Phillida," and "Miss Callender" would
sound forced and formal. Phillida was equally embarrassed as she came
forward, but Millard's tact relieved the tension. He spoke in a tone of
reserve and yet of friendliness.
"Good-morning. I hope no disaster has happened to you." The friendly
eagerness of this inquiry took off the brusqueness of omitting her name,
and the anxiety that prompted it was sincere.
"There is no time for explanations," said Phillida, hurriedly. "Mr.
Martin has called a Christian Science healer to see Tommy, who is very
ill with diphtheria."
"Tommy has diphtheria?" said Millard, his voice showing feeling.
"Your aunt wants a doctor," continued Phillida, "but Mr. Martin has left
the woman in charge, and she refuses to give up the case. Tommy is
crying, and Mrs. Martin is in a horrible position and wants to see you."
Here Phillida's eyes fell as she added, "There was nobody to send; I
couldn't get a messenger; and so I had to come myself."
"I am glad--" here Millard paused and began over--"You did the best
thing to come yourself. You will excuse me, but I don't understand. You
haven't charge of the case at all, then?"
"No, no, Charley--Mr. Millard; there is no time to explain. Get a good
doctor, and put Miss Bowyer out, if you have to fetch a policeman. Get a
good doctor at once. If you save the child you must be quick, quick! The
horrible woman will be the death of him."
Millard caught the infection of urgency and began to take in the
situation. He stepped to the door, drew aside the portiere, and said:
"Washington, call a coupe for me. Quick, now." Then he called after the
boy as he went to the telephone, "Tell them to hurry it up."
He turned towards Phillida; then with a new impulse he turned again and
walked impatiently to the office. "Mr. Oliver, won't you ask if my man
is below, and send him here as quickly as possible?"
The clerk moved, without ruffling his dignity by undue haste, to the
speaking-tube which communicated with the basement. In the course of
half a minute a young Englishman, with a fore-and-aft cap in his hand,
came running to the reception-room, in the door of which Millard was
standing.
"Robert," said Millard, "run to the stable and have them send my coupe
on the jump. Come back with it yourself."
The well-trained Robert glided swiftly out of the front door, not even
asking a question with his eyes.
"You'll go back with me in the coupe?" Millard said to Phillida, who had
risen and now stood waiting in embarrassment to say good-morning.
Phillida could not for a moment think of driving back with Millard, not
so much on account of the conventional impropriety in it as because her
visit was capable of misconstruction; and while she believed that
Millard knew her too well to put any interpretation of self-interest on
her coming, she could not have brought herself to return to Avenue C in
his coupe. If for no other reason, she would have declined in order to
avoid prolonging an interview painful and embarrassing to both. She was
worn and faint from the fatigues of the night and the excitement of the
morning, and she could not think of the right thing to say.
"No; I will go home," she said. Spoken thus, without calling him by
name, the words had a severe sound, as of one mortally offended. A
sudden access of fatigue and faintness reminded her that she had eaten
nothing this morning.
"You will excuse me. I've had no breakfast yet. I've been at Mrs.
Martin's since daylight. Good-morning, Mr. Millard."
This explanation made her perfectly proper refusal somewhat less abrupt
and direct; but the words were still cold and severe.
"I will call another coupe, and send you home. You are faint," he said.
"No, thank you," she said, and went out.
But Millard followed her into the street, and hailed a car, and assisted
her to enter it, and lifted his hat and bowed in response to her "Thank
you," when she had gained the platform. As the car moved away he stood a
moment looking after it, and then returned toward the sidewalk, saying
softly to himself, "By Jove, what a woman! What a woman that is!"